


Love / Hate

by Nomanono



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Adolescence, But they all come out as angry cat, Damn Victor and his long silky locks, M/M, Puberty is Hard, TFW you hate someone so much all you can do is lie in bed thinking about them, Teenage Drama, Zine: Push/Pull, or is that just Yuri, so many feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 12:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17244320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomanono/pseuds/Nomanono
Summary: Perhaps that was the moment Yuri truly became a teenager: when he decided he hated Victor Nikiforov.





	Love / Hate

**Author's Note:**

> I struggled immensely with this piece for the Push/Pull zine. Victor and Yuri are two of my favorite characters, but when I was assigned the pre-canon time period I wasn't quite sure how to build tension knowing the usual payout was off-limits. I finally got it to a place that feels workable, even if my creator brain remains super frustrated with it, so hopefully everyone can enjoy!

When Yuri was ten, he left behind everyone and everything he’d ever known. His grandpa took him to the airport, adjusted the hat on Yuri’s head, and patted his back as he shuffled off through security. Yuri knew better than to cry—he was stronger than that—but his stomach still hurt too much to eat the cookies on the flight or the borscht that Yakov served that night, which tasted nothing like his Deda’s.

Yuri had never known his father, and Yakov acted even less like one than Deda. Deda at least had held him, even if the hugs were short and only before bed. As months bled into years, Yuri stopped waiting that extra second when Yakov sent him to bed. Yuri stopped expecting affection, to the point that even Yakov’s hand on his back, balancing him while he brushed the snow off his skates, made Yuri’s ribs constrict.

A small part of Yuri always felt that distance, like exposed muscle that refused to scab—never bleeding, always raw. The gap left by his father’s absence filled instead with a subtle dissatisfaction, a yearning that Yuri would never acknowledge by that name. Yakov provided a firm hand, knowledge, and a teacher’s charisma, but it was merely water where Yuri craved solid sustenance.

Yuri managed, of course. He always did. He skated with absolute determination, even as adolescent hormones warped his yearning into a different kind of desire.

It started with Victor Nikiforov’s hair.

It was a long silver waterfall, like liquid mercury stretched spiderweb-thin and organized in shining fashion from Victor’s crown. Yuri sat unlacing his skates, and Victor alighted beside him on the bench, head cocked to the side, hairbrush moving through the silky strands thoughtfully, absently. The urge to touch came on abruptly, as if every individual hair was a siren unto itself, crying out for Yuri’s fingers. Would it be cool, like a river, or the underside of his pillow in the middle of the night? Would it be smooth, like the satin lining of his fancy suit, his gift from Yakov after his bronze medal?

“…do you need help?” Victor asked.

“Huh?”

“Your lace.”

Yuri looked down at his boot, where the flat lace was pierced through by one of the metal hooks, which he’d been absently tugging on for the last who-knew-how-long as he watched Victor Nikiforov brush his hair. Yuri’s heart dropped like a stone and his cheeks went hot as lava. The shame boiled inside in an instant, channeled into an explosive: “I can handle it!”

And then Victor Nikiforov laughed, like the most embarrassing moment of Yuri’s life was simple entertainment.

Perhaps that was the moment Yuri truly became a teenager: when he decided he hated Victor Nikiforov.

Because it had to be hate. The heat lingered in Yuri, flaring up over the next several days whenever Yuri saw Victor, whenever Victor’s hair swirled behind him during a spin or flounced over his shoulder as he flashed his fancy smile to the cameras trailing the world champion.

The first time Yuri said ‘fuck’, it was about Victor Nikiforov, and Yakov sent him to bed before dinner.

Yuri told himself he was happy when Victor cut his hair, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He watched Victor’s fingers slip through the newly trimmed strands: just as cool and silken and sensuous as when Yuri first started hating him.

“Where’s your head at!?” Yakov yelled at him, and Yuri glared and landed a triple toe. “Sloppy,” Yakov scoffed.

So Yuri pushed himself harder.  He sat in the kiss and cry after performing a forbidden quad with his arms crossed and his mouth soured all the way through Yakov’s lecture. How was he supposed to beat Victor without quads?

Only then Victor himself showed up with that laugh that always summoned the blood to Yuri’s cheeks. Yuri never remembered what he did when that furnace-fire fueled him, but by the end they had a pact: if Yuri could get gold in Juniors without quads, Victor would create a program for Yuri’s senior debut. They even shook on it. Victor’s hand wasn’t as firm as Yuri expected; compared to the solid smack of Yakov’s on his shoulder blade, Victor’s was almost tender.  

Not that Yuri cared. Not that Yuri thought about it all the time. Not that Yuri used their pact like rich black coal to keep his fire burning.

The older boys at the rink filled another gap in Yuri’s male education; they’d never know what Yuri overheard from his side of the lockers, or the way he went to bed that evening and tried their tricks, thinking about how he was going to beat Victor, and what Victor’s face would look like, staring up at Yuri on the podium. He’d be able to see Victor’s hair. He’d kick his ass. He’d —

When Yakov caught him, Yuri’s door damnably unlocked, the coach gave a grunt of inevitability.

“Lock your door next time,” he grumbled as Yuri clutched his sheets up to his chest. “And if you even look at our ladies—”

“Fucking gross, old man!” Yuri shouted, throwing a pillow at the cracked-open door. Yakov’s frustrated, exasperated snort sounded in time with the door shutting, and that was as much of ‘the talk’ as Yuri ever got.

He didn’t stop, but he did lock his door, thieving tissue boxes from the living room until he found a value pack by his door one day. The practicality of it didn’t make up for the embarrassment of being discovered.

“Yuri,” Victor trilled, lazily lounging on the barrier with his toe-pick nuzzled in the ice, “You straighten out of your landings too quickly. You look like you’re bouncing.” Yuri rolled his eyes. The Grand Prix was two weeks away. Yuri’s closest competition had a base score 20 points lower.

“Whatever,” Yuri said, spitting the word on the ice like a curse. “Mind your own business.”

Victor’s falsetto sigh was just as melodramatic as his free skate, which Yuri ignored completely, unless he was in bed under his covers imagining Victor under him on the podium. A year to learn quads? Easy. He still practiced them sometimes, when the other coaches weren’t looking and Yakov’s back was turned. He should have been rigged up with a spotter, but where was the fun in that?

“One day you’ll find someone who really challenges you,” Victor said in that same careless tone, like Victor was just watching the world play out in front of him and idly commentating instead of living.

Yuri came to the edge, hand resting on the barrier like a barre as he lifted his skate up above his head. His turnout angled the blade towards Victor’s face, threat implicit. “Maybe someday you’ll find a reason to shut up.”

Instead of his humoring smile, this earned a smirk from Victor. He cocked his head like someone watching a particularly entertaining puppy video. How could Victor be just as fucking annoying in silence as he was with his camera-ready crooning? Yuri kicked his toe pick into the ice, throwing up a rain of snow, and grabbed his skate guards.

The night after the Grand Prix medal ceremony, Yuri was bored, and he was sharing a room with Yakov, which meant he couldn’t do what he normally did when he was bored.

He kicked at Victor’s door.

“Yuri. Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Victor teased, tossing a hand through his hair as he stepped outside. Victor had taken gold just as easily as Yuri and seemed equally lackadaisical about it. When perfection was the expectation, you delivered.

“Fucking bored,” Yuri said. “Yakov’s snoring already. Let’s do something.”

Victor snickered, like remembering that part of his childhood, and went back inside to grab his jacket and wallet.

“Take me drinking,” Yuri said.

“The day before your exhibition?” Victor side-eyed him. Yuri glowered.

“Yeah, Dad,” Yuri rolled his eyes. Fucking Victor.

They wound up in a corner of the hotel restaurant, Yuri scarfing down a charcuterie plate while Victor perused the menu and ordered Yuri a nonalcoholic version of his own drink. Yuri normally stole sips when Yakov wasn’t watching, but his first taste of Victor’s pink-hued cocktail made him gag.

“That’s disgusting,” Yuri said.

“You,” Victor said, swapping the drinks back to their proper positions, “aren’t supposed to be drinking. Virgin.”

“Virgin,” Yuri echoed, white knuckled. He’d heard everyone else talk about it; it just never seemed as important as Yuri’s preferred fantasies of conquering Victor Nikiforov. He looked up at Victor, cyan eyes half-hidden behind his silver fringe and contended lids. He was studying the menu, or something past it, and only looked up when he felt the lingering intensity of Yuri’s gaze.

“What?” Victor asked. “I have sponsorships to think about. I can’t give you—”

“What’s so fucking great about it anyway,” Yuri growled.  

“Huh?”

Yuri’s blood ran hot, his cheeks darkening, the volcano waking from its slumber: “Not being a virgin.”

He expected Victor to laugh. Laughing was exactly what fucking Victor Nikiforov would do. Laughing was what Victor had done in the very beginning, when Yuri was just trying to tie his goddamn skates.

Victor startled, lips parted mid-word, like his tongue got stuck on the roof of his mouth. Yuri didn’t think it was possible, but that was even worse. His blood bubbled in his veins.

“Forget it, fuck,” Yuri said, teeth gritting together from all the pressure building inside him. “Forget it.”

Victor was blissfully silent for a few precious seconds while Yuri sank into the earth, his chest crushed, bones and muscle and blood all pulverized directly into the hotel’s stained carpet.

“I couldn’t be bothered for the longest time,” Victor said, finally. “Everyone talked about it but…” Victor shrugged, like forced nonchalance, but he wasn’t his usual comfortable self. A thoughtful pensiveness replaced his normal, casual confidence. “Anyway. Sometimes it’s wonderful. Sometimes it’s not. But you don’t need to do it to prove yourself.” Victor eyed Yuri. “And if anyone says otherwise, tell me, and I’ll deal with them.”

That was at least three separate revelations hammering Yuri’s already blood-flush brain, and all Yuri could manage was: “What the fuck, Dad.”

That time Victor did laugh, but it wasn’t cruel. He put his hand on Yuri’s shoulder.  “Worry about your medal instead.”

“Why?” Yuri asked. “No one else comes close.”

“Not this year,” Victor said. “But next year you’re up against me.”

“Next year I’m going to beat you,” Yuri spat.

“I look forward to it,” Victor smirked, and Yuri hated him all over again.

He took it out at the banquet the next day, shouting at the half drunk senior that shared his name until the sorry embarrassment slunk back to his room. Yuri had no excuse to leave, and Yakov insisted he linger and socialize, so of course Yuri found himself at Victor’s side, gold and gold posed for pictures and smiling for sponsors.

“Your choreography better be good,” Yuri hissed when the banquet began to thin. There was no response, so he looked to Victor, whose happy, glossy eyes followed him a split second late. “The fuck? How much did you have to drink?”

It took Yuri a half hour to get Victor back to his room, Victor insisting every minute that he was fine.

Yuri had never done this before, but he’d heard enough in the lockers.

“It used to feel—so different,” Victor groaned as Yuri brought him to the bathroom, lifted the seat, and let him wretch.

“You’re so fucking drunk,” Yuri said. “What got into you?”

Victor shook his head, then wretched again. Yuri’s nose curled in disgust and he flushed the toilet.

“Yuri—Yuri—I’m fine,” Victor said, forehead resting on forearm resting on toilet rim.

“No, you idiot, you’re fucking wasted,” Yuri said. “I’ve never seen you like this you sloppy—”

“I’m soooooorrrryyyy,” Victor whined.

Yuri went to get water. That’s what you did right? Two empty glasses sat on the dresser, capped in little paper hats to keep the dust out. Yuri watched Victor shiver on the floor as he filled up the glass, and when Victor didn’t respond to the offered vessel, he nudged Victor’s shoulder.

“I’m okay,” Victor tried again, voice slurred. He took the water and downed it all at once, along with the next two refills. It all wound up in the bowl a few minutes later, but the one after that stayed down, and eventually Victor stood on his own and crept to his bed.

Yuri tugged Victor’s shoes off. Victor had already managed to escape his jacket, shirt, and tie.

“Take your belt off,” Yuri said, nudging Victor. “You’ll get all bruised.”

“Yeah,” Victor agreed, but the hand that went down just flicked dumbly at the buckle.

“Fucking idiot,” Yuri cursed, fingers shaking as he unbuckled it and pulled it free.

Victor fell asleep on his side with Yuri sitting on the edge of the bed, wondering what the fuck to do. He’d never seen Victor like that, never seen the infallible Victor Nikiforov—who could be picture-ready even hungover and freshly tousled—look so weak. Vulnerable. Whatever. It was pathetic, wasn’t it? Yuri should be disgusted. But he wasn’t. He wanted to be there. He couldn’t leave.

He was still sitting there when Victor stirred, groaning. Yuri held out the trash can, but Victor just shook his head and reached for the glass of water on the dresser.

“Why’re you here?” Victor asked in a sleepy, slurry rasp.

“Cause you’re fucking dumb,” Yuri said.

“No—why—” Victor insisted.

“You owe me choreography,” Yuri said. “Who’s gonna make my debut program if you kick the can, old man?”

Victor just blinked at him, oblivious, and Yuri punched the blanket lump in the approximate location of Victor’s ribs.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” Yuri glared. “You promised. You promised if I took gold at World’s without quads you’d choreograph my debut for Seniors. I’m going to fucking kick your ass with your own choreography, and don’t you dare skimp on me.”

Victor blinked several more times and finally choked out a single, barking laugh. His hand found Yuri’s, long elegant fingers curving around Yuri’s smaller set. He squeezed, but even afterwards, Victor’s hand stayed atop Yuri’s. Yuri’s heart pattered like a rabbit caught in a snare.

“Yura…” Victor said, and for the first time he sounded happy again. “Yura… you’ll make it interesting.”

Two months later—two months of furtive, desperate nights with his door locked—Yuri Plisetsky stood at the top of the podium: Junior World Champion. The people he looked down on weren’t Victor Nikiforov, but next year that would change.

At the press interview after Worlds, Victor sat with a fire blazing in his eyes and his usual calm confidence.

“What will you do next year?” one of the press asked, and Victor’s charming smile flashed: “I’m going to teach Yuri Plisetsky everything I know, then find a way to beat him.”

And Yuri, in the audience, smirked, his gaze locking with his mentor’s. Now Victor had that same heat, that same glow to his cheeks, that same drive.

They’d do it together. Make history. Push each other harder. And one day, one day soon, Yuri would wind up on top, even if now it was enough just to be together.


End file.
